No Nukes, No Problem? Germany's Race for a Renewable Future

During the last several years, there has been talk of a global "renaissance of nuclear energy". That was yesterday. Today, the tragic disaster in Fukushima, Japan, has raised worrying questions about the safety standards of existing nuclear power plants.

Countries around the world have prompted safety reviews of active reactors. In the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will publish a review of the 104 active reactors within three months. China has meanwhile suspended new plant approvals and Switzerland has shut down its plans for nuclear expansion.

But safety issues are not the only concern for nuclear power these days. Rising costs and perceived financial risks are significant barriers to new investments. President Obama supports nuclear power and has included it in his plans to achieve 80% clean energy by 2035.

The Administration has also requested that Congress triple the Bush-era nuclear loan guarantees to $54.5 billion. But despite this federal support, the financial outlook is grim and several projects in the U.S. are delayed or have been cancelled. Analyses suggest that even before the Fukushima crisis, nuclear energy was not competitive in free market economies without significant government support.

Transition or Transformation? Benchmarking against Germany

Countries around the world are in need of reliable and clean energy. Climate change will require a transition towards a low carbon economy within the next decades. In the wake of Fukushima, the key question is: “If not nuclear, what’s next?” As policy makers and industry stakeholders around the world continue to evaluate the role of nuclear power for energy transition, it will be useful for the US to benchmark its strategies against those of other countries.

Germany, in particular, is pursuing a path forward that represents a significant departure from business-as-usual in the US and other countries. Rather than developing nuclear power, Germany is aggressively pursuing renewable energy in combination with innovative new electricity grid management strategies. Interestingly, Germany used to depend much more on nuclear electricity (~30% of national supply in 1999) than the U.S. currently does (~20%).

The scale of change that will be required for Germany to meet its renewable energy targets is unprecedented. In September 2010, the conservative government under Chancellor Merkel released its Energy Concept, which outlines the government’s plan to reduce carbon emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 (and 80% by 2050) in part by increasing the national share of renewable electricity to more than 35% in 2020 and to 80% by 2050. Within four decades, one of the world’s leading economies will be powered almost entirely by wind, solar, biomass, hydro, and geothermal power.

The German government is combining its push for renewables with a rapid retreat from its existing nuclear assets. Following the Fukushima disaster, the German government announced a three-month shutdown of seven of its seventeen nuclear power plants and a review of its nuclear strategy. No blackout followed and national energy supply has remained stable.

Nuclear power capacity was replaced by reducing surplus electricity exports, by temporarily importing electricity from neighboring countries and by using the reserve capacity of traditional back-up power plants. Some analysts have argued that a nuclear scale-back in Germany would prevent the country from reaching its long-term climate and energy goals. In reality, Germany is already well on its way to transitioning from nuclear and fossil fuel power to renewable energy.

The old nuclear power plants had been a bottleneck for greater investment. With the planned phase out of all nuclear power capacity, investors are lining up to put more renewable energy and high-efficiency natural gas plants in place. Overall, CO2 emissions will not rise as the energy sector has to comply with the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the associated emissions cap.

Within the Next Decade: Germany’s Nuclear Phase Out

There has been strong anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany since the nuclear accident in Chernobyl in 1986. This has been reflected in a series of legislation placing limitations on nuclear build out. In 2002, Germany passed legislation establishing a phase out of nuclear power by 2022. In 2010, the Merkel government confirmed the phase out in general, but extended plant lives by an additional 8-12 years.

This extension, which was framed as a necessary “bridge” to a renewable energy future, was unpopular with the public. Soon after the Fukushima crisis, Chancellor Merkel’s party (the conservative Christian Democratic Union, or CDU) lost a key election in the state of Baden–Württemberg. The historic election was largely seen as a referendum on nuclear power and it handed the governorship of Baden–Württemberg, one of Germany’s largest and most economically powerful states, to the Green Party, following close to six decades of CDU rule.

At the national level, there is now a new consensus across the political parties in Germany that the nuclear phase out will again be accelerated. The question is not if Germany will phase out nuclear power, but how quickly. Instead of being shut down some time after 2030, current proposals envision full nuclear shut down some time between 2015 and 2025.

During the past decade, Germany has fundamentally transformed the way it produces electricity: from 2000 to 2010, Germany increased its share of renewable electricity from 5% to 17%. The country has consistently met its legislated targets ahead of schedule and appears poised to outdo itself again in the next few years. The previous target of 30% renewable electricity by 2020 has recently been updated by Germany’s official National Renewable Energy Action Plan(NREAP). The NREAP reveals that the country expects to actually generate 38% of its electricity from renewables by 2020.

While hydro power, geothermal, and biogas play an important role in the renewable mix, wind and solar power will expand the most rapidly under the German renewable energy strategy. It is projected that wind and solar will supply 18% and 7% of national electricity by the end of this decade, respectively. Although Germany has received criticism for supporting comparatively high-cost photovoltaic (PV) systems, the government remains committed to growing its PV markets and it seems likely that PV will be competitive with retail electricity within the next two to three years.

Several PV markets in Europe -- the Czech Republic, France, and Spain – were recently scaled back following rapid market growth in 2008-2010. Some analysts speculated that Germany would be the next large PV market to be capped. Germany has installed 17,000 MW of PV to date which amounts to more than half of the world’s total, including over 7,400 MW of new PV capacity in 2010 alone. The official projections are that PV will expand to more than 50,000 MW by 2020. This equals the capacity of 70 coal fired power plants. Given the phase out of nuclear power, it is likely that this projection could be revised upward as the transition towards a renewable energy based economy accelerates.

Rethinking the Way We Do Business

Most electricity grids have not been built to accommodate the scale of intermittent energy generation (e.g. wind and solar) envisioned in Germany. When pressed about this challenge, a German government official recently responded, “Without a problem there would be no solutions.” Rather than viewing the restructuring of the current grid as an insurmountable obstacle, Germany views the challenge as an opportunity for necessary innovation to support an affordable, clean, and more decentralized energy system in the future. As Germany’s Minister of Environment recently stated:

It is economically nonsensical to pursue two strategies at the same time, for both a centralized and a decentralized energy supply system, since both strategies would involve enormous investment requirements. I am convinced that the investment in renewable energies is the economically more promising project.

The future of the German electricity industry will require a rethinking of the way energy is bought, sold and transmitted. In developing the Energy Conceptand in presenting its recent six-point plan for accelerated transition, the Merkel government has identified several key initiatives to reorganize the grid, including:

Relying increasingly on flexible power plants, such as biomass, biogas, and natural gas, that can more readily balance intermittent wind and solar generation

Strengthening and expanding existing electricity grid infrastructure, including the construction of transmission super-highways that can move electricity between the north of the country, where wind is plentiful, and the south, where the solar resource is stronger.

Widespread introduction of smart meters and smart grid technologies

Accelerated energy efficiency deployment

If centralized nuclear energy and renewable energy are indeed on a collision course, then the German government is working to ensure that renewables not only survive the impact, but emerge stronger than ever before.

Germany’s Path Forward

The German experience provides a useful case study as the world continues to look for ways to address mounting energy challenges in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Germany is aggressively pursuing a transition away from both nuclear power and from conventional fossil fuels and will likely encounter the challenges – and reap the benefits – of this strategy before other countries.

Some analysts have hypothesized that Germany’s 20-year support for renewable energy would place a drag on the economy. However, Germany has rebounded from the financial crisis faster than many other countries around the world and is currently enjoying its strongest economic growth (and lowest unemployment) since its reunification 20 years ago. Renewable energy currently employs 370,000, compared to 50,000 in the coal industry (from mining to the power plant) and Germany forecasts that its exports of clean energy technologies and expertise will continue to expand in the future. If the investment that Germany is making in renewable energy pays off, then it is likely that Germany will continue to remain the economic engine of Europe in the decades to come.

Arne Jungjohann (left) is the Program Director for Environment and Global Dialogue with the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Washington DC.

Wilson Rickerson (middle of page, right) is CEO of Meister Consultants Group and leads the company’s international energy and climate work.

19 Comments

It is a bit irritating to see the ancient statistic or 20% of US power from nuclear. That may have been true decades ago but in 2010 nuclear was passed over by renewable energy at 12%. I see no reason to overstate the value of nuclear and understate the reality of renewable energy..http://www.energyboom.com/emerging/renewable-energy-production-rises-us-nuclear-numbers

Solar prices continue to drop while nuclear costs are rising, the the necessary safety upgrades evidently needed after Fukushima push the cost of nuclear power out of the question, and in terms of safety, operating costs, speed of installation, and the ability to add any amount needed, solar is always the winner. CSP with energy storage also solves the full time power solution. When one considers the huge use of fresh water needed by nuclear for cooling another reason to use solar becomes clear.

I see the false issue of bird and bats deaths keeps crawling out of the grave. Check the facts, bird deaths from wind are less than pesticides, pollution, power lines, buildings, cars and cats by far. http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/10/business/vinalhaven-wind-turbines-kill-fewer-than-10-birds-yearly-study-says/?ref=latest

It's not the personnal Merkel decision. It's a world political act.
It's not only about Germany, the EU or the clean environment…
Germany is well known as the engineering excellence nations, so the Germany opinion should be based on the well analysis and great German reputation…so it's a very strategic step such a decision to be made by the Germany at first.
It's about the encouragement of the new/green/renewable technologies and providing the additional stimulus, well-founded reasons for huge investments. What other reason or political point of view could be better defended and supported by the mass/ordinary people and the world politicians than this one indicated by Merkel as the great people care and clean environment?
Billion investments have been disseminated to the green technologies in the last decade. As at the same time only at least 1% of this amount is provided to the disastrous regions and other humanitarian acts….
As a physicist, Merkel knows very well that such a decision makes no scientific or economic sense but …it's a great opportunities to invest in the "new technologies". All of us know that the renewable electrification gets a really good financial support by the state…
The other side is that is on a real Germany has realistic way to generate enough power to offset the loss of nuclear power by 2022…
The big problem with our renewable energy policy is that it focuses entirely too much on that "mass scale" without any additional information about the real environmental impact of such investments. Producing renewable energy on a mass scale means greater environmental impact, even with renewable and "green" technologies. It means increased transportation costs where fossil fuel is involved. It means poor air quality is concentrated around the plants where coal and oil are burned. It means disruptions in flyways and bird deaths when windmills are built. The real "carbon footprint" of the called Green technology are huge.

MSR are not breeders, and they do reduce waste from LWR. I'm digging up the link(s). Give this a gander:

http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/

ANONYMOUS
May 20, 2011

CS Brudy
Your first post said 'we will need a permanent way to get rid of the LWR nuclear waste that is scattered everywhere. MSR is the solution.' Only breeder type reactors can do that -- by consuming long-lived radioactive transuranium nuclides. Of course the breeding ratio can be low.

The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (1965-1969) was a prototype for a thorium fuel cycle breeder reactor nuclear power plant. The Oak Ridge National Lab experimental MSR omitted the large thorium salt breeder blanket needed for a POWER reactor.

The radioactive and fissile inventory of MS POWER reactors, like that of all other breeder type power reactors, exceeds that of LWRs. So an MSR Chernobyl accident will be worse than the original.

Anonymous: MSN reactors are not breeders. The main reason the oak ridge MSN reactor was shut down after nearly a decade of safe operation is that it did NOT have the capability of creating weapons grade material. Another reason is that the fuel is cheaper, and vested corporate interests make a lot of money supplying fuel rods to the current "Light Water" reactors. Those reactors can be designed in a far better manner, but we are stuck with ones we have. Plus we have the insanely dangerous waste. MSRs can reduce the danger of that waste, reducing half lives considerably while generating clean electricity. Another big plus is MSR uses no water, and should the machinery get screwed up by an earthquake, salt plugs melt and the fissle reactions stop.

Andrea Rossi has given three demonstrations so far including with professors from Bologna University and the Swedish skeptics society and the Chairman of the Swedish Physics Union. This is an directory of Rossi efforts http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Andrea_A._Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Generator. This is a link to the LENR site where detailed information about cold fusion efforts is available. www.lenr-canr.org/News... The US Naval Research lab has been working on this with positive results for over 10 years and has confirmed it existence. Yet the major scientific magazines refuse to touch this issue since it was purportedly discredited by some researchers and an institution that stood to lose 10s of millions in funding per year in hot fusion. Government funded hot fusion systems have never produced surplus energy after years of research billions invested.

Rossi has announced a 1MW Cold Fusion facility to be opened in Greece this Oct. Still top line periodicals have yet to publish even one article. This will change the economics of the world lifting many people out of poverty and it will also threaten many vested interests.

http://pesn.com/2011/05/17/9501827_Ampenergo_Amps_Up_Rossis_Energy_Catalyzer_in_America/
"..Ampenergo was founded by Karl Norwood, Richard Noceti, Robert Gentile and Craig Cassarino. It is important to note that Robert Gentile was the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) during the early 1990's. This helps confirm Rossi's claim that tests of the E-Cat have been observed by the U.S. Department of Defense and the DOE. It is very likely that at least certain individuals in the DOD and DOE are aware and interested in the Energy Catalyzer. However, their silence is deafening.

It is unknown if any military or secret government research is taking place, but there are unsubstantiated rumors floating around the internet of the US Navy using a nickel-

ANONYMOUS
May 18, 2011

One factual problem with the article.
PV installations in Germany produces 800-900 MWh per year per installed MW (see http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.120.8964&rep=rep1&type=pdf ) while a thermal power plant produces around 8000 MWh per year per installed MW. So 50 000 MW installed solar is not equivalent to 70 coal-fired power plants but rather 7. On top of that PV does not produce any appreciable amount of power during the German winter season so it will not allow Germany to close down any thermal or power plants, just reduce their summertime fuel consumption a bit.

MSR and other breeder reactors are more likely to cause another Chernobyl than prevent one. But it will be one that will dwarf even terrible previous Chernobyl.

Their inventory of highly radioactive fissile materials far exceeds that of LWR's, and they are subject to the same void fraction instabilities that caused the reactivity (nuclear fission rate) of Chernobyl to increase from 1% of normal power to 100 times normal power (a factor of 10 000) in just 3 seconds -- thereby contaminating Europe as far as Ireland (where locally produced milk had to be discarded for months after Chernobyl)

It is no surprise that the world's largest (horribly expensive) breeder reactor -- SuperPhenix -- effectively (its load factor) actually operated for only 7.8% of its lifetime of a mere decade or so. See the International Atomic Energy Association's PRIS (Power Reactor Information System) database http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/ :-- on the left under Country, select France, under Sorting Order, select by type. Then click on Super-Phenix, then on Operating Experience History. The load factor varied from 0 for several years to 32%, with a cumulative value of 7.79% for its entire life.

Germany is entirely right in aggressively pursuing renewables, which when properly implemented are far more cost effective in the long run.
Ben

ANONYMOUS
May 18, 2011

Gaucho, your link www.lenr-canr.org/News does not work (at least not for the last 12 hours).
Ben

From Deutshe Well
"Electricity costs are on the rise in Germany. They could threaten the international competitiveness of German companies and push them to move their operations abroad.

"Because it's pretty much unique to Germany - the consequences of the rising energy costs in general mean that big energy users like copper producers or aluminum manufacturers (could) leave Germany and head to Eastern Europe and that's not what we want," Schäfer told Deutsche Welle.

The hefty electricity bills are due partly to commodities price hikes and partly to government efforts to subsidize renewable energy. The subsidy costs are now being passed on to users in the form of the Renewable Energy Law (EEG) apportionment, which has risen from 20.47 euros to 35.30 euros per megawatt hour in 2011" (from about $28 to $40 per MWH)

Cost of base load power in Germany, March 2011: 64.26 Euros per megawatt hour or about $91/mWh. Average cost of power in US, March 2011: was around $60/mWh in the Eastern US (PJM.org) although such analyses run the risk of "apples-and-oranges" miscues. However, the point is that the cost of power in Germany appears to be very roughly 50% higher than in the US, largely as a result of renewable energy.

Another factoid – Germany is now importing thousands of megawatts of nuclear power from France.

Wind, Solar, Biomass, Tidal. Glass paved highways that serve as both PV and the new grid. All will be where we end up, eventually. Meanwhile, we will have to go with Molten Salt Reactors (MSR), anyway. Why? Because, after another monster earthquake under an American reactor creating our own Chernobel, we will need a permanent way to get rid of the LWR nuclear waste that is scattered everywhere. MSR is the solution.
It will be some time mainly because key actors are making big money processing uranium into reactor fuel. Along with big oil and big coal the uranium industry will fight renewables tooth and nail.

Rossi has given three demonstrations so far including with professors from Bologna University and the Swedish skeptics society and the Chairman of the Swedish Physics Union. This is a link to the LENR site where detailed information about cold fusion efforts is available. www.lenr-canr.org/News... The US Naval Research lab has been working on this with positive results for over 10 years. Yet the major scientific magazines refuse to touch this issue since it was purportedly discredited by some researchers and an institution that stood to lose 10s of millions in funding per year in hot fusion. This This funded hot fusion system has never produced surplus energy after billions have been spent and years of research.

Rossi has announced a 1MW Cold Fusion facility to be opened in Greece this Oct. Yet top line periodicals have yet to publish even one article. This will change the economics of the world lifting many people out of poverty and it will also threaten many vested interests.

FROM LENR-News
Rossi 6-hour demonstration convinces Swedish experts
April 2011
On March 29, 2011, a test of a smaller Rossi device was performed. It was attended by two new observers: Hanno Essén, associate professor of theoretical physics and chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, and Sven Kullander, chairman of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' Energy Committee. They agree with other independent observers that the device must be producing a nuclear reaction. See NyTeknik: Swedish physicists on the E-cat: 'It's a nuclear reaction.'
This test employed a new, smaller device with a 50 cm3 cell. It produced ~4.4 kW for 6 hours, or 25 kWh (90 MJ).
Essén and Kullander wrote a report, also in NyTeknik, Experimental test of a mini-Rossi device at the Leonardocorp, Bologna 29 March 2011. Focardi gave a revealing radio int

Well done, gentlemen,
One can only hope that the US administration will take note of some of your salient points.
Renewable energy jobs do not yet outweigh the substantial coal mining industry in the US, and the coal lobby remains strong and well funded, but it is worth noting that this is not necessarily the long term case, as policies evolve. Utilities would do well to concentrate short term investments in adapting to renewable sources, especially via smart grid to deal with diverse and dispersed energy sources. The concept of long haul super-highway super-efficient transmission from North to South in Germany could (and perhaps should) be adaptable to the West Texas development of wind power. Imagine for a moment an energy future some 20 years hence in which the capex of West Texas wind power has been absorbed and very cheap power is transmitted direct to Manhattan as part of what is now considered 'baseline', or better yet, tied to a comprehensive webbed grid that can integrate this cheap power from anywhere to anywhere as if it were part of everyone's baseline (when available). In theory at least, the entire grid could operate on a computerized auction basis, switching sources and destinations according to auction prices to maintain lowest power costs for end consumers.
Of course Europeans are more leery of nuclear in part because there are no 'remote' areas at great distances from dense populations, but nor should America assume that distant locations for nuclear power plants are 'disposable' in case of nuclear accidents just because they significantly reduce the NIMBY factor. Thorium may be safer and 'reduce' the toxicity factor from half-life of thousands of years to 'mere' centuries, but still has reprocessing risks, and is far from a total solution.
The German direction, and especially the aggressive schedule look to me like a very positive step.
Sincerely,
Stafford 'Doc' Williamson